The Scalphunters

Buy This Item The Scalphunters by MGM (Video & DVD)  Available from Amazon  $12.99  on 11-1-2008     OscarÂ(r)-winning* director Sydney Pollack delivers a "rousing good show" (The Film Daily) with this fast-paced western full of "irresistible humor" and "delightful ironies" (MotionPicture Herald). Starring OscarÂ(r) winners** Burt Lancaster and Shelley Winters along with Telly Savalas and Ossie Davis, The Scalphunters is "a lively, ribald and unpredictable pleasure which carries the western into new country" (Los Angeles Times)! When trapper Joe Bass (Lancaster) is bushwhacked by Indians who steal his fursand leave him a runaway slave (Davis) in exchangehe's determined to get his property back. But when the Indians are attacked byoutlaws, Joe and his unwanted companion must join forces to retrieve the furs in a startling, action-packed journey of self-discovery that concludes with one of the "all-time cinematic comeuppances" (Citizen-News)! Reader Reviews This terribly misunderstood movie suffers from its refusal to fully subscribe to the cliches of a single genre. It is a western: horses, guns, parched landscape and all. It is also a bit of a savage social sendup. The scalphunters of the title were white men (and their women) who killed Native Americans for money. The bounty for the murder was paid on their scalps. There's also a wonderful theme about the wary ex-slave-one of many in the west who've been left out of the western movie genre. This was very subversive stuff back when the film was shot and the slight nod-and-wink that the director and cast make to the viewers were post-modern back in a pre-post-modern time. Along with its many layers, this is a crackin' good story.Telly Savalas does his best work ever as the leader of the scalphunters and Shelly Winters plays the role she was born to. Ossie Davis plays the rôle that made his career with canny delicacy and Burt Lancaster brings a physical grace to the character of the fur trader who is robbed first by Native Americans and then by the scalphunters. The film is so iconic that in at least one novelbang BANG: A Novel, it becomes a sexy, fifth date movie rental. Lynn Hoffman, author of New Short Course in Wine,The

The Scalphunters Available from Amazon Price: $12.99 Updated on 11-1-2008.

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